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From The Editor: Unintended Consequences

The Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (Finra), which is responsible for ensuring that securities firms have effective anti-money laundering programs in place, had a tough time doing that in 2011 after being denied access to suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by the firms it oversees. Finra and other self-regulatory organizations (SROs) were denied access to SARs in a December 2010 final rule from the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). It was one of a number of regulations issued to preserve the confidentiality of SARs. "A significant number of investigations were held up," Emily Gordy, a Finra senior vice...

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